Helping ideas, projects, and organizations move forward.
IEB, Inc. is a small, independently run company in Japan that has been helping people and organizations turn ideas into practical action since 2002.
Our work has taken many forms over the years—from English and international education to program coordination, outreach, web development, and ongoing digital support.
What connects that work is simple: understanding what someone is trying to accomplish, figuring out what will help, and working alongside them to make it happen.
What We’re Doing Now
Today, IEB’s work centers primarily on two areas.
Web & Digital Support
IEB provides ongoing web and digital support for a small group of organizations and professionals, primarily outside Japan.
Sometimes that means maintaining and updating a website. Other times it means adding and organizing content, creating pages or templates, troubleshooting a technical problem, supporting newsletters or social media, or helping someone learn how to manage a digital tool themselves.
The work varies because the needs vary.
Rather than starting with a particular service or solution, we start with what someone is trying to do. From there, we help sort through the pieces, find a practical way forward, and put the necessary tools and systems in place.
Japan-IMF Scholarship Program Outreach
Since 2008, IEB has worked with the Institute of International Education (IIE(opens in new tab)) to support outreach in Japan for the Japan-IMF Scholarship Program for Advanced Studies (JISP)(opens in new tab), a scholarship funded by the Government of Japan for Japanese nationals pursuing doctoral studies in macroeconomics who are interested in a career with the International Monetary Fund.
IEB maintains the program’s Japanese-language website and helps ensure that prospective applicants, professors, and advisers in Japan have access to current and useful information about the scholarship.
Our work includes website content and FAQs, outreach to universities and professors, email communications, social media, information sessions, and responding to inquiries in Japanese.
The audience is specialized, so the goal is not simply to reach as many people as possible. It is to make sure that the right information is available, understandable, and easy to find when the right person comes looking for it.
More Than Two Decades of IEB
The IEB of today looks quite different from the company we started in 2002.
Over the years, IEB has operated an English conversation school, coordinated international education programs, supported study-abroad initiatives, managed outreach and recruitment projects, and developed websites and digital communications for organizations and independent professionals.
Each chapter has led naturally into the next, adding new skills, relationships, and ways of helping along the way.
The People Behind IEB
AKIRA KOBAYASHI
ADVISOR
小林 明
顧問
Akira Kobayashi has been part of IEB’s story from the beginning.
His career has included extensive work in international education and study abroad, including many years as a faculty member at Meiji University’s School of Global Japanese Studies.
Although he is no longer involved in IEB’s day-to-day work, he continues to take on projects related to the planning and coordination of university study-abroad programs and student advising.
MARCI KOBAYASHI
CEO
小林 マーシー
代表取締役
Marci Kobayashi established IEB in 2002 and manages its work today.
Originally from the United States, Marci has lived in Japan for most of her adult life. Her work over the past two decades has crossed education, international programs, outreach, websites, digital communications, and hands-on technical support.
She is also the author of Finding Yoyu and is increasingly making more room in her life for writing.